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Using a Sing/e Diskette Drive System
Most operating systems expect the computer to have at least
two diskette drives and display prompts and messages
accordingly. MS-DOS, for example, recognizes the first diskette
drive (the top drive) as drive A and a second diskette drive as
drive B. If you have only one diskette drive, MS-DOS can treat
it as both A and B when you need to perform operations that
normally would use two diskette drives.
For example, if you enter a command to copy data from A to B,
MS-DOS copies the data from the first diskette you place in the
drive (which would be drive A) to the computer’s memory.
Then MS-DOS prompts you to insert another diskette (for
drive B) and copies the data from memory to the new diskette.
When copying is complete, you see a prompt to insert the
original diskette (A).
Because you may often swap diskettes this way, it is important
to remember which diskette is which. It is also a good idea to
write-protect your original diskette. (See “Write-protecting
Diskettes,” above.)
If you have a hard disk and one diskette drive, you can load the
operating system and application programs from the hard disk,
create and store your data there, and use the diskette drive just
for copying data to or from diskettes.
However, if you have only one diskette drive and no hard disk,
you need to use that drive to load the operating system as well
as any application program you are using. First, insert the
operating system diskette (the MS-DOS Startup diskette, for
example) in drive A and load the operating system; this copies
it to the computer’s memory (RAM) so you do not need to
leave the system diskette in the drive. Then remove the system
diskette and insert your application program diskette to load
that data into memory, too. See your application program
manual for detailed instructions.
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Using Your Computer